Phoenix Rising
by Na'hiel
Summary: With his dying breath, Ron Weasley is given the chance to go back and do it all over again, and maybe this time, he'll get it right. The catch? Somebody else is trying to get it right as well, but their right isn't necessarily Ron's. SLASH. HP/DM/RW.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

**WARNINGS: This story will include the following things: foul language, violence, discussion of child abuse, character death, OOC-ness, slash, and a badass Ron who intends to take no prisoners. I reserve the right to add warnings if necessary. If any of these things aren't your cuppa tea, no harm in hitting the back button.**

Phoenix Rising

Prologue-

Ron didn't bother trying to be quiet as he entered the room.

"You're going to kill yourself, too, you know," came the soft, dreamy voice from the window. He was lit by the light of the full moon, though his face was dipped in shadows.

"I know," Ron said. "I"m going to do this anyway."

Draco laughed, a light and tinkling sound. "I know." He turned, then, and offered Ron a bittersweet smile. "You don't have to."

"I do."

Draco's head dipped in a shallow nod. "You do." The room fell into darkness as a cloud drifted over the moon, and when the light came back, Draco was standing in front of Ron, close enough to touch. "Shall I oppose you?" he asked.

"I'd probably lose if you did," Ron admitted. "You're more powerful than I am."

Draco hummed softly but said nothing in regards to that. "You really think you can save the world?" he asked instead. There was a gently disbelieving expression on his face.

"I think that it's time that I try," Ron said. "I've stood by for too long. I can't… He can't be allowed to continue. I won't let him continue."

"If you're certain, I suppose I'm not going to be able to stop you." Draco shrugged, spread his arms, and smiled at Ron. "Go on, then. I don't want to know for even the second it would take what it would feel like to live without him."

"I don't want to kill you," Ron said finally. "You could leave, quickly, and be out of range before the backlash starts."

Draco laughed again, but there was no joy in the sound. "I could. But then I would live without him, and living without him is no way of living at all, is it?" He dropped his arms, then, and shifted a bit. "I could attack you, you know. If it would make you feel better. I wouldn't be trying to stop you, because I can't, but I could make it easier."

Ron laughed softly, unwillingly amused. "It doesn't work if you tell me that's what you're doing, you know."

Draco's smile softened. "I know," he said.

"You've been a good friend, Draco. I'm sorry it came to this."

"You've been the best friend that either Harry or myself could have ever wished for. I hope that you are prepared for the path that you're taking," Draco answered.

"I'll be dead soon enough, so I don't imagine that it matters," Ron said.

Draco laughed, and there was something so strange and knowing about that laugh that Ron wondered what Draco knew that he didn't. Other than just about anything about the future, that is. Ron wasn't going to have a future. Not with the decision that he made. But it was the right decision.

He lifted his wand, pointed it at Draco's heart, summoned up his courage, and whispered, "_Avada Kedavra_." The Killing Curse hit his friend and Draco fell to the ground, all the life gone from him in the blink of an eye.

He heard Harry scream as Draco's body fell, and it took only moments for him to arrive in the room. "What have you done?" Harry snarled, his red eyes burning in his fury.

"What I had to," Ron responded, even as he lifted his wand once more. "What I should have done years ago, but never could."

"He was mine," Harry hissed, advancing angrily on Ron. "He was my Soulmate, and you've gone and killed him! I should… I will… I'll destroy you for this, you filthy little blood traitor!"

"Neither one of us will live long enough for that," Ron said. This wasn't his friend. He had to remember that this wasn't his friend anymore. He didn't know what this was, who this was, or when he'd lost Harry to this thing, but this wasn't Harry.

"I am immortal. I am unkillable! There is nothing you can do to destroy me!" Harry snarled. He was angry, and wasn't thinking, and that made him far less dangerous than he should be.

His grief over Draco's death would make this simple. "Then this shouldn't affect you at all," Ron answered. "_Avada Kedavra!_"

The spell struck Harry and the Dark Lord's eyes widened before he fell to the ground in a heap. Ron stood there, and had only a breath to wait before Harry's body started to glow, white hot and burning like a star. The glow grew brighter and brighter, and Ron should be running. He knew that he should be running. But why should he run, when he had nothing more to live for?

Magic exploded from Harry's body, white hot and burning and fierce and free and Ron knew only darkness.

The darkness was warm. It was warm in a way that nothing had been warm for Ron since… since Harry had managed it. The warmth soaked into Ron, soothing him, comforting him, revitalizing him. Ron couldn't have said how long he drifted, alone in the dark, when he felt something new. Something strange.

A brush against him, almost solid but not quite. It felt like curiosity, and he smiled. Or would have smiled. He was pretty sure he didn't actually have a physical form here. He couldn't see himself, at any rate, though that could have just been because of the all encompassing darkness.

But Ron didn't mind the darkness. It felt safe, peaceful, and above all else, warm. Ron had never been so warm. Not in the last five decades, ten decades, whenever it had been at any rate, if not longer. When had Harry managed to cast that spell? It didn't matter, he supposed. It was all over. Harry and Draco were dead, and he was dead too. He only hoped that something had survived.

"Nothing much did," a soft voice whispered in his ear, in his head, all around him. There was a small light, now, a pinprick in the limitless expanse of darkness that surrounded him.

Ron supposed he should be sorry that nothing much had survived his last act among the living, but he couldn't find it in himself to be. He'd done what he had to. He should have done it years ago, then maybe the world might have had a chance to recover.

"It wouldn't have," the voice whispered. "The world was doomed to end long before Harry performed that ritual. Freezing time only sped up the process."

Ron shouldn't find that funny, but it seemed ironic that freezing time had only sped things up.

"We are amused too, not just you." The prick of light had grown, now, and it was slowly taking shape. Ron found himself standing in a room, before an unspeakably beautiful person with long hair the color of the universe and wide, glowing black eyes. "Do you know who we are?" the person whispered.

The answer came to Ron and his breath, if the dead even had breath, left him. "Magic," he answered.

"We are Magic," the being confirmed, "and we are here with an option for you. A choice."

"I'm dead. I wasn't aware that I would get many choices about that," Ron said, then regretted it. Sassing Magic could only be a terrible idea.

"You amuse us," the being said, in what was probably meant to be reassuring. It wasn't. "The choice is simple. Do you want to have the chance to put things right, or do you want to remain adrift forever in the darkness?"

Ron's eyes narrowed. He'd lived for so long with such dangerous people that he could feel the walls of the trap closing around him. It wasn't a particularly happy feeling. "That's no choice at all. Anybody would take the chance to get it right."

Magic nodded. "This is true," the being whispered. "And somebody else already has. In the interest of being fair, of course."

In the interest of being fair… that meant that somebody who had believed in the Dark Lord Potter would have already taken the chance to go back. One of those… monsters was already back in the past, presumably wreaking havoc to bring Harry to power that much sooner. Ron couldn't… he couldn't let that happen. Harry deserved to live a happy life, unencumbered by the monster he'd become.

He opened his mouth to accept, then closed it with a frown. "Why give us this chance?" he asked, suspicious.

"We find ourselves unhappy with the way things turned out in your original timeline. We would fix this, but we cannot. We must give you a chance to fix things for yourself."

"If that's the case, why send somebody else back at all, if they're working for the same future I just came from? The one where I… died..." And wasn't that odd, to be standing here talking about his death. He wasn't sure what he'd expected in death, but he was relatively sure this wasn't it.

"It was not just you that died, by the end. When you killed the Dark Lord, you killed the entire planet. He froze time, and with his death it unfroze and the world was destroyed. The other we have sent back believes that, so long as that ritual is never completed, the world will not end. We are willing to give the other a chance, as we are willing to give you a chance. At least we already know that you are ruthless enough to kill your friend should it become necessary once more."

Ron shuddered at the thought of killing Harry a second time. It had been hard, harder than anyone could possibly know, killing him the first time. Ron had let so much go, too much, because he couldn't face the idea of killing… of killing him. Harry was… Harry was not his. He knew that. Harry was Draco's, Magic had decreed as much. But that didn't mean that Ron didn't…

The monster he had killed was not Harry. Ron had a chance to make sure that the monster who had taken his beloved's form would never have the chance to do so again. He had the chance to get Draco away from his father entirely much sooner than Harry's killing him. He might never be able to be happy, but he could give his beloved the chance at happiness that he'd never had before.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'll do it," he said.

Magic smiled, leaned forward, and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. He could feel something burning within him, changing, shifting, and Magic whispered, "Our gifts to you." Then, as the world began to fade into darkness once more, he heard only one more thing, "We like your vision better."

ooOOooOOoo

When Ron opened his eyes, he found himself staring at the familiar ceiling above his bed in Grimmauld Place. When he rolled onto his side, there was Harry, fifteen years old, fast asleep.

He had a chance to fix everything. He wouldn't waste it.

* * *

A/N: Oh, hey look, it's another new story. I know, I know, I have like fifty in progress right now. Okay, bit of an exaggeration. I only have five. And this makes six. The good news is, this is my NaNoWriMo story, and I'm trying to write a chapter every day. This does not mean that you will get a chapter every day, because editing before posting is a good thing. Chapters should be at roughly this length, and hopefully I'll finish the whole thing this month. Hopefully.

Anyway, if you're still reading, sit back and enjoy the ride! It's gonna be a wild one.


	2. Chapter One

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Phoenix Rising

Chapter One-

Ron knew that it was true, and yet, he could scarcely believe it. He was here. Harry was sleeping in the bed next to his own, looking younger than he had since… since everything had gone wrong. He had another chance. He could do things different. He could win, and if he was lucky, he could do it before Harry could be more hurt than he already was. In the scheme of terrible things that had happened to Harry, well, the Second Rising and the loss of Cedric didn't really count as much.

Ron could undo all of that. He could keep Sirius alive. He could… he could keep the Headmaster alive long enough to find out what the crazy old man knew about Voldemort. Maybe if he could figure that out, he could keep Voldemort from rising over and over again. It had been a nightmare, putting him down each time. They'd never managed to figure out how he'd done it, and they'd looked. Oh, they'd looked. And then… to have all of that be for nothing in the end…

No. No. Ron had a chance, now, he could do this. He'd been the best strategist Harry'd had. He could find a way to avoid all of it. Of course, it would be easier if he knew which of Harry's supporters had come back to oppose him but… it didn't matter. They were all equally brilliant and dangerous in their own way. Lucius. Bellatrix. Severus. Antonin. Walden. Alecto. Amycus. Rabastan. Thorfinn. Draco.

Any one of them could be devastating, if he didn't figure out which one it was. Without knowing, he couldn't begin to try to counter them, since any one of them would use a different set of tactics from the others. He would have to see if he couldn't start ruling people out, and quickly.

Of the likely possibilities, he could probably rule at least one out. He was relatively certain he could rule Draco out, since the other's devotion had been to Harry and not to the monster he'd become. Lucius' power had come from his connection to his son. Had it not been for Draco, he never would have made it into Harry's inner circle. But that didn't mean he wasn't a true believer, didn't mean that he wouldn't still do anything to bring back the future that Ron was so determined not to allow to come about a second time.

The options were endless, and endlessly terrifying. And Ron couldn't figure it out now.

"Ron!"

Ron started and stared blankly at Harry, who was blinking owlishly at him from the bed. "You okay? You look… you look like you've seen a ghost."

"No, I'm… I'm fine," Ron managed. There was so much he wanted to say, just then, and he couldn't say any of it. If he did, if he gave himself away… he would be stopped. He was meddling with time, and wizards weren't ever to meddle with time. On the other hand, he was doing it with Magic's blessing, so did that make it okay?

Better not to risk it.

"Okay," Harry said, and shot him a strange look as he stood up. "But you didn't even hear Mrs. Weasley telling you to get up, did you? It's time to eat breakfast so we can catch the train."

"I didn't," Ron agreed. He looked around the room. Really? Time to catch the train? He hadn't even packed. The room was a wreck. Younger him was… a bit of a slob, actually. Funny, he hadn't remembered that part of things.

With a flick of his wrist and a muttered charm, his and Harry's trunks packed themselves neatly.

"Ron! You're not supposed to do magic outside of school yet!"

That voice. Oh, Merlin, that voice. Ron stared at Hermione, standing with her arms crossed disapprovingly in the doorway. He hadn't… Hermione had…

_She was screaming._

_He could hear her screaming, hear them laughing, and there wasn't anything he could do. There was nothing they could do. They were helpless._

_"Let me go! Can't you understand we need to learn to live together?" She was asking, even as they tied her to the pole in the middle of Trafalgar Square. "I'm a person, just like you! I have parents, a family, children even!"_

_They weren't listening, and all Ron could do was watch as they lit the kindling beneath her. Witch and wizard burnings were common, now, too common. Ever since the Muggles had found out about them. Muggles were terrible, really. They didn't care which side the wizard or witch was on, they just wanted them all gone._

_Harry shifted beside him, his hand going for his wand. Draco rested a gentle hand on Harry's and whispered something to him. Whatever he said, and Ron had no idea, Harry's hand fell back to his side._

_"They'll pay for this," Harry whispered. "One day, I'll destroy them all."_

_Harry's eyes had begun to glow, then, as red as the flames that swallowed their friend._

The red had faded from Harry's eyes, but sometime after the Fifth Rising it had returned, and a part of Ron had been glad that Hermione hadn't lived to see what her friend had become. She would have been devastated.

Ron should have turned Harry over to the Muggles then and there. If only he'd known then what he knew now…

"RON!" Hermione's shrill shriek snapped him out of it, and he found himself struggling to focus on her. Why in the world was she so blurry? He could barely see her through the strange… oh.

Oh. He was crying. "Sorry, 'Mione," he whispered, and wiped at his eyes. He had to hold it together. If he cried like this at the sight of all of his old friends, well… he'd be crying an awful lot. He'd outlived them all, after all. And eventually somebody would start to get suspicious.

"Are you okay, really? Harry said you didn't notice anyone talking to you earlier, and I had to shout at you, and I didn't even think you knew that packing spell," Hermione said, and stepped into the room. "You know that if there's a problem, you could tell Harry and I."

"No, I'm fine. I know," Ron said, and tried a smile on. It didn't really feel right, so he let it drop pretty quickly. He hadn't properly smiled in a very long time. "I just had some really weird dreams, that's all."

Hermione stepped closer and stared at him, really analyzed him, and Ron fought to keep from looking away. Hermione wasn't a Legilimens; she wouldn't even hear of the art until Harry began his training later this year. There was no way she'd be reading his mind right now. That didn't mean, of course, that she wasn't the brightest witch of her age. There was a reason the Light had fallen to pieces when she'd died, and not just because Harry had gone mad. She'd been their one shot at figuring out how to stop Voldemort once and for all, and then the Muggles had happened.

If there was anybody at Hogwarts who might figure him out, it was Hermione.

"And the spell?" she asked. "Because you've never shown any interest in household charms, and I didn't think you knew how to do anything like it."

Ron offered her a sheepish shrug. "Must've read it somewhere," he said with what he hoped was a bland smile.

It must've been bland enough because she let out a small noise and said, "Breakfast is getting cold. You two should go eat before the twins get down there and eat everything."

Harry rolled his eyes, but left the room. Ron stayed in bed and stared at Hermione until she left as well, then he took his time getting ready. There was no need to rush. There would be plenty of food. His Mum always made enough, and besides, he wasn't sure how he would handle seeing… everyone… again.

Things hadn't gone so well for the Weasley family in the future. Ginny hadn't made it through the Second Rising, and had died with the Burrow. His Mum, Dad, and Percy had died in the Third, defending Hogwarts. Hogwarts had closed shortly thereafter, and it had never reopened as a school. The Fourth had taken Bill and Fred, when Diagon Alley, the Ministry, and Gringotts fell. Charlie had died defending his dragons during the Fifth, and his dragons had been what ended Voldemort for the last time. And George had been found, hanging from the rafters in the attic of Grimmauld Place, having killed himself when Harry had risen to power.

No, things hadn't gone well for his family at all in the future. In the end, he'd been the only living Weasley. He didn't…

He would have to, of course, go down and see them. There was no avoiding it. No avoiding them. All of them, too, not just his family. Sirius, who'd fallen through the Veil before the madness had truly begun. Neville, who'd fallen to Bellatrix in the Fourth Rising just like the rest of his family in a cruel twist of fate. Luna, who'd just… disappeared sometime during the Third Rising. The Muggles had probably gotten her, or a Death Eater who hadn't lived long enough to claim the glory.

How was he supposed to deal with seeing all of them again? The things that had happened… they'd been terrible. It had been a terrible world in the end, filled with terrible people. He'd been one of the worst. But he would do anything to make sure it didn't happen again. And maybe that was the key. Maybe that doing anything also meant holding it together so that nobody suspected anything was up.

Well, he'd done a bang up job of it so far, hadn't he? He'd have to do better. He couldn't afford to lose the game so soon after it had begun. He had to win. He didn't have a choice. He could do this. He was the only one who knew there was a this that needed doing.

Ron took a deep breath, let it out slowly, centered himself, then stepped out into the hallway. He could do this. He made his way down the stairs slowly. He could do this. He had to do this. The kitchen was full of people, full of life, full of hustle and bustle and noise and joy, despite the fact that Voldemort was already alive once more. He didn't have a choice. He had to do this.

"Ron, there you are! Would you please just sit down and eat so we can get to the station? We don't want to be late!"

His Mum fussed at him until he settled into a chair and started eating, and Ron almost couldn't swallow because of the lump in his throat that he just couldn't get rid of, but he managed. He took several gulps of juice and he managed. He was here, at the breakfast table, surrounded by his family once more. He'd never thought…

He had to close his eyes, take a few deep breaths, and center himself again. He couldn't burst into tears in the middle of breakfast. There was no way he'd be able to explain himself.

And then he was distracted by a loud bang in the middle of the kitchen. He was on his feet, wand out and pointed at the noise, a curse on his lips when he realized that he was a second away from killing his brothers.

Ron took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and put his wand away. He sank back into his seat and picked up his fork like he hadn't been about to kill them. It wasn't like anybody would know what curse he'd almost let out, anyway. Maybe nobody had noticed him standing…

"Ron, what was that?" Hermione hissed at him, as conversation slowly resumed around the table.

He could hear Mum berating Fred and George in the background, but he focussed on his plate and on Hermione. "I told you. Weird dreams."

"Weird dreams don't make you do things like that," Hermione said. She was scowling at him, now. "Are you really Ron Weasley?" she asked suddenly, still in a whisper.

Harry snorted beside him. "Who else could he be?" Harry asked. "It isn't like anybody's had time to replace him. We've been stuck in this house, which is protected by the way, so who else could he be?"

Hermione's scowl was thunderous. "I'm just saying, he's acting weird. After last year with Crouch posing as Moody, we can't be too careful."

"And I'm saying there's no way he could be anybody other than Ron," Harry said cheerfully. "He's acting a bit weird. So? We all have bad dreams sometimes. I know I've been having some rough ones." His face darkened for a moment, and Ron hated that Harry would have those awful visions once more.

Ironically enough, they'd stopped at around the time Harry had started to go mad in his original timeline. Maybe he'd find a way to stop them before they sent Harry over the edge.

"Bad dreams don't give you a.. a reflex like that! He had his wand drawn before the twins were even finished Apparating!" Hermione protested.

"He's sitting right here, you know," Ron interjected, and forced himself to grin. "Look, 'Mione, it was just a really weird night for me last night, that's all. I doubt I could do that again if I tried. Although… maybe if I could perfect my reflexes like that, I could try for Quidditch next year." He studied his plate thoughtfully, as though he were really considering that.

Like he would have time for Quidditch, with all the work he had to do. There was a Dark Lord to stop, for the second and final time. Quidditch wouldn't be a thing this year, or any other year.

"Hey, yeah! We've got a bunch of players graduating next year. That'd be great!" Harry said.

"You boys and your Quidditch," Hermione muttered. And then she said, brightly, "Of course, you won't be able to play if you don't get enough OWLs to come back to Hogwarts next year. Which means that you've got to buckle down and study this year!"

Ron groaned. OWLs. He'd forgotten about those. Studying? The hardest part was probably going to be pretending like he didn't know enough to pass them all.

He'd cross that bridge when he came to it. In the scheme of things, OWLs were among the last things he really had to worry about. Like Quidditch.

"Would you all hurry up and finish eating? We have to get to the train! I don't want you to miss it, again!" Mum said, and Ron hastily finished the food on his plate.

It was time to go back to Hogwarts. Maybe he could find some information there about why Voldemort just hadn't stayed dead. Right at this point in time, that seemed like the best place to start. And he was a Prefect now. That meant he'd have more freedom to wander the halls.

He just had to keep reminding himself of a few things, that was all.

He had to not cry when he saw his friends alive and well. He couldn't greet Draco as a friend, at least, not yet. He couldn't curse any Muggles he ran into on the streets. Hogwarts was a school again. And he had to at least try to remember what he'd been like during his fifth year, because he was already raising red flags and Hermione would figure him out if he wasn't careful.

Oh, and he had to somehow eliminate Voldemort before he could drive his best friend mad. Yeah. That last thing should be a piece of cake compared to everything else.

* * *

A/N: Okay, you might get a chapter every day. We'll see. Also, there's a poll on my profile about your favorite pairings. Check it out!


	3. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter

Phoenix Rising

Chapter Two-

The train station was a nerve racking experience for Ron. There were too many people all in one place, and it had been years since he'd seen that many people together. As a matter of fact, he was relatively sure that the number of Muggles in King's Cross at that very moment was greater than the number of Muggles left in England by halfway through Harry's reign.

It didn't help that he couldn't quite manage to suppress his deep and burning hatred of them. They were monsters, all of them, and he couldn't stop his lip from curling at the sight of them. It was only the fact that Hermione was there with him, undoubtedly still watching him, that made him blank his face. And then they were entering the Platform, and that was an entirely different experience, because his last memories of the place…

_Harry, Ron, and Hermione had only just exited the train after their seventh year when the first pops sounded. Ron had thought, at first, that they were from parents coming to pick up their children, until he remembered that the entire platform was warded against Apparition. The wards were down. Somebody had brought the wards down._

_Before he'd had time to realize what that meant, the curses were flying through the air. He watched a little first year fall to a vicious cutting curse, her blood spraying up in a macabre fountain. Ron had his wand out, casting "_Protego!_" but it was too late. She was dead._

_Harry and Hermione both drew their own wands, and Malfoy, to Ron's surprise, joined in the fight to keep the rest of the children safe. There had been something different about Malfoy as they fought side by side. The fight had been quick, but brutal, and in the end over half of the first and second years were dead and the Platform had been almost entirely destroyed._

_They hadn't managed to catch any Death Eaters that day._

That had been the last time a train from Hogwarts had arrived at King's Cross. One had departed the following year, but sometime during that year the Muggles had found out about them and it had been too dangerous to allow all of the children to be in one place in a Muggle-dominated area.

And though Ron hadn't known of it, that battle had been his first exposure to an entirely un-Imperiused Draco Malfoy. He hadn't figured it out until a few years later, during the Third Rising, when Draco had joined them after running away from his family. It had been Hermione who had figured out the way to protect Draco from the Imperius, and eventually Draco had reconciled with his father. His mother had been dead by that point.

Everybody had been dead by that point, just about. That had been after the Fourth Rising.

"Ron," Hermione said, and there was something in her voice. "We have to get on the train, now."

Ron hadn't even realized time was passing. He really had to work on that. It was just… seeing all of these people in one place and knowing that, where he'd come from, they'd all been dead… it was hard to keep his focus on the here and now. Hopefully whoever was opposing him was having similar difficulties, otherwise he'd be at a terrible disadvantage.

Feeling more and more discouraged, Ron forced himself to follow Hermione into the train. He couldn't let himself get too depressed. He had a job to do. Maybe he wasn't the best person for this, but he was going to give it his all.

ooOOooOOoo

The train ride and the feast that followed passed by in a blur for Ron. Part of it was the fact that he couldn't bring himself to meet anyone's eyes, because every time he did he saw them dying. At least, it passed in a blur until the Headmaster began to introduce their new Defense Professor.

He'd forgotten about that bitch. Umbridge. He would kill her, and he would make it slow. She'd done more on Voldemort's behalf than any other witch or wizard within the Ministry, at least, she had until she'd died at Hermione's hand during the Third Rise. If Ron had his way, she'd die a lot sooner. Likely before she ever left Hogwarts this year.

But not right away. He couldn't afford to tip his hand so early. He had no idea what his opponent might notice as out of the norm, if his opponent would even realize that Umbridge dying before she'd done so initially was his doing or somebody else's. Perhaps he would get lucky and his opponent would put minor divergences down to just fluctuations within a different timeline. Of course, Umbridge's early death would never be considered minor.

For that matter, should he put minor differences down to fluctuations in the timeline, or should he assume everything was the work of his unknown enemy?

This was giving him a headache, to be perfectly honest.

After the feast, he and Harry and Hermione left the Great Hall, and Ron again had to wrestle with himself as he was surrounded by a crush of students. It had been years, decades, maybe even a century since the Great Hall had held so many people in his time. Once Voldemort had taken Hogwarts, it had never held students again, and the next time Ron had seen it, Harry had the place under lockdown. After that, time had sort of blurred together. He didn't even really know how old he was, to be honest.

The castle had always felt dead in Ron's time, so it was nice to see it so alive once more.

During his first patrol with Hermione, Ron fought to be as normal as possible. As normal as fifteen year old himself, anyway, which was difficult because he couldn't… he found that he was having a lot of trouble pretending to be a child. Maybe it would have been better if Ron Weasley had disappeared and somebody else had arrived, but an action like that would certainly have tipped off his enemy.

It was during their patrol that they ran into Draco, who was as cruel to them as Imperiused-Draco always had been. Which, from an adult Ron Weasley's perspective, wasn't very cruel at all. This Draco was much more like a kitten than a dragon, though he was certain he would have been enraged once upon a time by Draco's antics.

"Well, well, if it isn't the Mudblood and the Weasel," he sneered, standing next to Parkinson. She, too, was sneering.

Their words had no effect on Ron. Unfortunately, they should have. "Don't call her that!" Ron snapped. "And better a Weasel than a ferret, any day!" As far as comebacks went, that was pretty useless. But it was better than standing silent, which would have given Hermione even more evidence to fuel her suspicions.

"Did you get this position out of pity, Weasel? Merlin knows that Potter would have been the better choice, but maybe Dumbledore wanted to give you a chance to shine," Malfoy taunted.

"Maybe the Headmaster recognized that Ron is a good and honorable person," Hermione returned evenly. "Though I can't imagine why he would have chosen you in that case."

"Draco has more honor in his little finger than you have in your body, Mudblood," Parkinson shot back. "C'mon, Drake, let's go. We don't want to breathe in their air for too long. Who knows what they'll contaminate us with."

Ron made to draw his wand on their retreating backs, knowing that Hermione wouldn't actually let him do it. "As Prefects we shouldn't be hexing each other in the back, Ron," Hermione said patiently. "And besides, it wouldn't do any good, anyway. There's nothing you can do to change their opinions of us."

Ron rolled his eyes. "That doesn't mean I can't get revenge on them for being asses," he muttered, even as he turned away. "Are we done with our patrol yet?" he asked.

"I suppose," Hermione said, sounding tired. This was probably late for her. From what Ron remembered, and admittedly his memories of Hermione's habits were pretty vague, she'd always been an early-to-bed kinda girl.

Ron was wide awake. Which was great, really, because he'd just figured out what his first move would be. He just hoped that it was as good an idea as he thought it was.

ooOOooOOoo

On second thought, this was a terrible idea and he really should give it up as a lost cause. The entrance to the Slytherin Common Room had never looked so terrifying in his life. And then he got ahold of himself, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. There was absolutely nobody in the dungeon who had a chance of hurting him, not after the life he'd lead. They were children, and he was a fully grown wizard with an entire lifetime's worth of battle experience.

He leaned in and whispered, softly, "_Draco evigilare_," and the entrance opened.

He hadn't been certain that would work in this timeline, but apparently the master password was good no matter when it was used, no matter the status of the castle. That would be… useful, to say the least. Of course, the password wouldn't counter any special wards placed by faculty, which meant he should still be careful exploring places like the Headmaster's office.

But the dungeon shouldn't have special wards, at least not unless Snape was a lot more paranoid than Ron thought he would be, and he stepped inside. It was early, around three o'clock in the morning, and even if he hadn't been entirely Disillusioned, he doubted anyone would be awake to see him. He'd borrowed Harry's Map for this adventure, and knew that nobody was moving within the Slytherin House. What Harry didn't know wouldn't hurt him, after all, and though he didn't know it, technically Ron was doing him a favor. Even with the Map and the Disillusionment, he'd draped a sheet over himself in lieu of the heavy black cloak he would have used in the future for sneaking around. He looked like a Muggle's idea of a ghost. It was ridiculous, and he really needed to figure out a way to get a cloak like he'd had. Money was something of a problem, there.

Whatever, it wasn't like anyone would see him, anyway.

He headed right for the dorms. He wasn't sure which one he was looking for, but it only took a few moments to figure that part out. It was a simple matter of opening each door, carefully and quietly, poking his head in, and seeing if he recognized anyone. There were a few people that he spotted that he was very tempted to kill on sight, but he refrained. They were children right now. They weren't yet the monsters they would become, and maybe if he was lucky they wouldn't ever be.

It was in the third room that he hit jackpot. There was Malfoy, and luckily enough he was apparently sleeping in the bed right by the door. Well. Things could go right occasionally, couldn't they? It wasn't like this was a trap or anything.

Merlin, Ron hoped this wasn't a trap. Being exposed this early would be a disaster.

He carefully stunned and Disillusioned Draco, then cast a quiet, "Mobilicorpus." He hated to see his friend dangling there in midair, looking like a puppet with no strings, but it would have to do for now.

Ron took another deep breath, pulled the pilfered Marauder's Map from his pocket, and headed out of the dorms, out of the common room, and out of the dungeons. It was lucky it was so late, or early really, because nobody was stirring. Filch was wandering somewhere near the classrooms on the third floor, but that was nowhere near where Ron needed to go.

He made it to the seventh floor, managed to open up the Room of Requirements, and stepped inside all without being caught. Which was really great because Ron was pretty sure he'd never have been able to explain just why, exactly, he was kidnapping a fellow student.

The Room had given him exactly what he needed, and Ron set Draco down dead center in the middle of the ritual circle. There were, Ron knew from experience, some one hundred plus candles in the seven concentric circles in the middle of the room. Draco went in the middle of them, and Ron expanded his magic.

The candles flared to life, burning brighter than he'd ever seen. It was a bit of a shock, really, how easy it was to access his magic now. It felt like it was right below the surface, boiling within him, just waiting for him to use it. Had that been one of Magic's gifts? Was he more powerful now than he had been?

It didn't matter. It would be useful, certainly, especially when it came to this ritual. He would have been able to do this with or without more power, but he would have felt it for days after. Hermione had invented this ritual, and she'd done so in such a way that any wizard could perform it, but that didn't make it easy. She'd wanted to make sure that nobody could ever be placed under the Imperius again. Unfortunately, things had gone to hell before they could spread it around.

The complicated bit was the dancing, and Ron was really glad that nobody was around to watch him strip naked and begin to move. In his original timeline, Harry had done this with Draco awake, watching, and laughing. Ron was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to do this with somebody watching, laughing, and critiquing his movements.

The ritual involved the dance around the circle, seven times. And as he danced, he chanted, "_Draco a foris auctoritas prótegam!_"* seven times for each circle.

It was a carefully choreographed ritual, and Ron had performed it several times in the past, the first time for Hermione herself. She' done it for him in turn, and he'd had to wear a blindfold so he couldn't see her. Not that he would have looked, anyway. He could see it working, as Draco began to glow with a soft blue light. After the seventh time around, Ron stopped and the candles all went out at once.

He wouldn't know for sure that the ritual had worked properly until Draco woke up, and Ron wasn't willing to risk waking him. Instead, he dressed himself, Disillusioned Draco once more, and recast the charm to move Draco. It took him a bit longer to move through the castle this time, because now it was sometime around five o'clock and people were starting to wake up, but he managed.

He walked into the hospital wing, empty still at this hour, and settled Draco on one of the beds. Madame Pomfrey would be in soon, and she would remove the stunner from him. And then, if he was right, Draco would be able to beg Sanctuary from Hogwarts, and legal proceedings might begin against Lucius.

Either way, Draco would be free and Ron had just made his first significant step in this timeline.

Even though there would be no time to get anymore sleep that night, Ron headed back to the Gryffindor Tower with a spring in his step. He could do this. Definitely.

* * *

*Translation courtesy of Google Translate. I don't know if it's accurate or not, but it's supposed to mean, "Protect Draco from outside influence."


	4. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Phoenix Rising

Chapter Three-

It wasn't even all that hard for Ron to pretend he'd had sleep on his first day of classes. He'd spent more than a few nights on the run during the Rises; he knew how to stay awake and alert while running on only a handful of hours of sleep, or even no sleep. It wasn't his most favorite thing to do, but he could manage.

Harry, on the other hand, looked like he hadn't slept at all. Ron tried to remember, but couldn't, when the visions had started. If he was lucky, he'd be able to end all of this before they got too bad. Before they drove Harry mad. Because he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to kill Harry a second time.

"Do you see Malfoy anywhere?" Harry asked suddenly as they sat eating breakfast.

Ron hid a smile in his pumpkin juice. "I don't. You think he's up to something?"

"I don't know. We should probably keep an eye out for him, just in case," Harry muttered. He was looking suspiciously over at the Slytherin table, like he expected Draco to just pop up from somewhere.

Ron was a bit amused, actually, by Harry's obvious preoccupation with the other boy. How had he missed that growing up? Draco's obsession had been obvious, even through the Imperius curse, but somehow he'd always missed Harry's. At least, up until sixth year. Then Harry's obsession had been taken to entirely new heights, as he'd been convinced that Draco was up to something. They'd never figured out what exactly Draco had been up to, if anything, but Harry had always thought he was.

Draco, once they'd befriended one another, had never said one way or another, and when asked about that year would only offer Ron the vaguest of smiles.

Their schedules were handed out, and Ron breathed a small sigh of relief. He hadn't been able to remember what order his classes would be in, but he would fortunately have time for a bit of a nap before he had to deal with anything serious.

History of Magic had always been a useless class. Ron had learned more about history on his own through idle reading than he ever had with Binns. He enjoyed the nap that he took during said class, and enjoyed even more Hermione's exasperated poking and hissing at him. She could poke and prod all she wanted, but the fact was that he remembered taking naps in that class. It would be very much in character for him to do so.

And then the real fun began, because he had Potions directly thereafter.

Snape was, and had always been, a wildcard in the past. Ron, to this day, still had no clue what side the man had been on. He'd played both sides masterfully, and had been one of the few members of the inner circle to still be alive when Ron had finally gotten the courage to kill Harry.

If he was Ron's enemy, Ron didn't know how he would handle that. Snape would be… he would be a terrifying opponent. And if he wasn't the enemy, there had to be a way to pin him down on one side or the other. The man was too slippery by far to leave alive if he was truly on Voldemort's side.

Ron wound up partnered with Harry, and because Ron wasn't paying attention to what he was doing because he was too busy studying Snape and comparing him to what he remembered of his fifth year, he and Harry produced a perfect potion. Ron was half-tempted to trip on his way to turning it in, but Harry would have been pretty upset by that.

If Snape was the enemy, this could tip him off. Snape was too clever by far to ignore even minor fluctuations in the timeline. But Snape merely congratulated him on producing a barely adequate potion with a sneer in his voice that almost made Ron smile, because it had been years since Snape had dared sneer at him like that.

Of course, just because Snape hadn't noticed, didn't mean that somebody else hadn't. As soon as they had left the classroom, Hermione began babbling at Ron and Harry.

"You both did so well," she said, sounding far too excited. "If you can keep that up, you'll do great on your OWLs. I just knew you had it in you. Did you study beforehand for once?"

"I didn't. I don't know what was up with Ron, because that was all him." Harry was grinning as he added, playfully, "And he can feel free to keep doing that during the rest of the year. I'd love a good Potions grade for once in our lives."

Ron forced a laugh and said, "Yeah, sure, if I knew how I'd done it, it would be easy enough to keep up." He'd have to make sure to mess up more than he was. This whole pretending to be fifteen thing was harder than he'd thought it would be. And then he redirected their attention with, "Malfoy wasn't in class today, either. Where do you think he is?"

Hermione shrugged. "Who knows," she muttered. "Maybe he's dropping out of school."

Ron certainly hoped not. If Draco withdrew from school it would be pretty hard for Ron to keep him safe. And he really wanted to keep the soulmate of his best friend safe. That seemed like the sort of thing a best friend should do, right?

Divinations was… well, it was Divinations. Trelawney was an absolute crackpot, although she did spend an awful lot of the lesson staring strangely at Ron. Hopefully that rare bit of true sight within her wouldn't cause Ron any trouble. She was crazy, but harmless, and Ron would hate to have to silence her.

And then it was time for the part of his day that he was least looking forward to. Snape was dangerous, absolutely, but there were none so dangerous as the snake he was about to have to endure. Umbridge. He wasn't looking forward to her class at all.

He kept his head down for most of the class, let Harry land himself in trouble because how could he stop it? His friend was still a hero right now; he wouldn't understand why Ron was trying to stop him, and Ron couldn't figure out a way to explain why he wanted to stop him yet. But he did make one, small change. When Umbridge sent Harry to McGonagall, Ron stood up as well.

"And what do you think you're doing, Mr. Weasley?" she asked, in her sickeningly sweet little girl voice that made Ron want to throw up.

"It seems to me that you and I have a fundamental difference of opinion," he said quietly. "I believe Harry when he says that Voldemort returned. You don't. You refuse to acknowledge that Harry might be right. I'm therefore going to follow my friend to Professor McGonagall's office, and I guess I'll be reporting to detention right alongside him."

Umbridge's eyes narrowed. "Well then. I suppose I'll see you for detention along with your dear friend, Mr. Weasley," she said, still in that saccharine voice.

Ron offered her a thin smile and swept from the room.

He was rather proud of himself, even during the detention that followed. He'd always sort of regretted not supporting Harry more publicly during their school years. Maybe if he'd been there with him, stood by him properly, maybe things would have turned out differently. He didn't know for sure, of course, because there really was no way to tell how things could have been, but he thought there might have been some difference.

He didn't know if it would change anything, his support of his friend, but even as the Blood Quill bit into his skin, even as the message The Ministry knows better than I was carved into his hand, Ron was happy to have shown Harry the support that he both needed and deserved.

And at the end of that detention, when both his and Harry's hands were wrapped and the bleeding had slowed, Ron was perfectly justified in hesitantly suggesting, "Maybe we should do what McGonagall says and keep our heads down this year."

Harry turned blazing green eyes on him, then. "Are you kidding?" Harry hissed, and Ron winced. He knew that expression, knew the tone that went with it. There was no way that Harry would back down. He could see it coming. "I'm not just going to let her lie to the whole school! We have to find a way to spread the word, to try and get people ready for the war that's coming. Because Ron, it's coming. You know it is, and so do I."

"I do, but Harry, we're just kids. We don't have to take all of this on ourselves, you know. We could just let Dumbledore handle things."

Harry frowned. "Maybe," he said after a moment of consideration. "I'll think about it, anyway. But I don't like just letting her get away with lying to the whole school. It isn't right, Ron." He paused for several seconds before adding, " It means that Cedric's death was for nothing."

Ron shrugged. "In the scheme of things, she won't be able to keep it up. Once the Death Eaters start really attacking, the world will learn the truth. They shouldn't have to wait until then, but they might need to. I just think you should leave this to someone else this time, that's all."

"Like I said, I'll think about it," Harry said, entirely too noncommittal for Ron's peace of mind.

He knew what 'I'll think about it' tended to mean, at least from a much older Harry's point of view. It generally meant that no thoughts would be given to the matter, and Harry would continue on with whatever plan he'd started with.

Harry probably wouldn't leave the Umbridge issue alone. Which was fine, really. It just meant that Ron wouldn't be able to either, because he wouldn't let Harry do this alone again.

And if Umbridge really became too much of a problem, well, there was always another option. Ron could kill her, easily, and he was pretty sure it wouldn't even hurt the timelines too much. In fact, considering the damage she'd done in Ron's original timeline, it would probably be a very helpful thing. Maybe he would, then. Perhaps he'd kill her sometime during the school year, before she could go back to the Ministry and resume spreading her poison around.

Ron sort of thought he might like that idea, actually.

ooOOooOOoo

The rest of the week flew by in a blur. Others began sporting bandages courtesy of Umbridge's detentions, and Ron grew more and more enamored with his plan of killing her off shortly. He was relatively certain that the Ministry had nobody to replace her, as their teacher in Sixth year had been Neville's grandmother. If the Ministry had been able to get somebody else in, they would have done so, as Neville's grandmother hadn't exactly done the best job as a teacher.

Draco wasn't in classes at all during the week, a fact which alternatively pleased and worried Ron. He'd either done as Ron hoped and claimed Sanctuary from Hogwarts, in which case when he returned it would be as a Ward of the school in the House which would be most likely to protect him, or he'd been forcibly withdrawn. Given that Dumbledore hadn't made any announcements one way or another, Ron was genuinely not sure which had occurred, but he was obviously hoping for the declaration of Sanctuary.

Despite Draco's continued non-presence in the school, Ron was actually feeling pretty good about the changes he'd made to the timeline. Sure, things weren't perfect yet, but he felt like he might actually be managing to do at least some small bits of good. And he'd even had some time to start researching, not that he was finding much in the school library. He'd need, at the very least, a pass to the Restricted Section to begin the serious research.

It was when he returned to the Tower after a long day of studying on Saturday that he realized that things were maybe not going as well as he'd hoped. Hermione was waiting for him by the Fat Lady's portrait, and before he could say anything to her, she'd pinned him with a frosty glare.

"We need to talk. Now. Privately," she bit out.

Ron really, really hoped that she hadn't figured things out.

That meant, of course, that she probably had. Things never could go right for him, could they?


	5. Chapter Four

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Phoenix Rising

Chapter Four-

"What's up?" Ron asked, and tried to keep a carefree smile on his face. What could she want, other than to harass him about things he couldn't talk about? No, that wasn't fair to Hermione. Maybe something had happened while he'd been in the library. Maybe Harry had been hurt or something, not that he was hoping for that. Merlin, he hoped not, in fact.

"Not here," Hermione said. "Follow me."

Ron hesitated, but before she could turn a corner he trotted after her. If she'd figured something out, then he had to know. If she hadn't, then he should probably hear her out. She was, after all, the brightest witch he knew. He'd never met someone who surpassed her, not even while working with Harry's inner circle. Of all of them, Bellatrix had been closest. Of course, she'd been mad as a hatter, but she'd been brilliant.

Hermione took him on a dizzying tour of the castle, until they wound up in what, if Ron remembered correctly, could only have been the room that had housed Fluffy during their first year. Admittedly, that had been a very long time ago for him, so he wasn't entirely certain. There was a trapdoor in the floor that seemed to confirm that fact, though.

She turned around and, after checking to see that he was in the room, cast a relatively strong privacy ward on the door. Okay, so relatively strong meant that it was strong for a fifth year Hogwarts student. Ron was pretty sure that she hadn't learned that charm in the original timeline until seventh year, when she'd been sneaking around snogging somebody she wasn't meant to be. Not that she'd ever confessed to who that was or anything.

She hadn't had to. Zabini had died before her, and she'd been devastated by it. She'd never dated anyone again after that, said that it was just too dangerous. They were all targets, after all, and their love interests would be targets as well.

"What's up?" he tried again, and fought the urge to reinforce her warding with something a bit stronger.

"You aren't Ron Weasley," she said with a quiet certainty that made Ron cringe.

"What are you talking about, 'Mione?" he asked, offering her his most bland, most confused look ever.

She was entirely unimpressed, and kept her wand trained on him. Not that it would do her any good. This Hermione hadn't even been through Dumbledore's Army yet, and if Ron had his say, she never would. Umbridge had to go, and fast.

"You aren't Ron Weasley. I don't know who you are, or how you've taken his place without using Polyjuice, but you definitely aren't him. You don't talk like him, you don't act like him, you don't even eat like him. So start talking." She was scowling, a fierce thing that was still a little bit intimidating, even to Ron.

Ron stared at her, considering. He had options here. He could Obliviate her right here, right now. She'd never see it coming. But Hermione was a clever girl, and she'd figure it out again. And maybe if she figured it out a second time, she'd go to Dumbledore instead of coming to him. Ron was relatively certain that he wouldn't be able to beat Dumbledore in a fair fight. He could tell her everything, try and get her to understand why he was doing what he was doing. She would make an invaluable ally. Maybe if he could make her understand, she would be that friend he remembered. Or, he could kill her. Ron really, really didn't want to have to kill her.

"You're right," he said finally. "In a way. I'm not the Ron Weasley you knew before this year began. But I'm not anyone else, either."

Hermione's brow furrowed in confusion, and then it cleared with a dawning look of horror. "You're travelling in time. You're Ron from the future. But… but how? There doesn't exist a spell or anything to do that! And if it did, well… it would be horribly dangerous! Meddling in time is never a good idea."

Ron laughed softly. Given that last hint, of course she'd figure it out quickly. She was brilliant. "You're right on all counts, there. As far as I know, there is no spell or ritual created now or in the future that allows me to do what I've done. And meddling in time is a terrible idea, but when that's the only option left, you do what you have to."

"What do you mean, when that's the only option left?" Hermione asked., even as she hesitantly lowered her wand.

Ron shifted, looked around the barren and dusty room they stood in. Finally, he drew his wand and conjured them some furniture. Again, his magic came to him far more easily than it should have. Had Magic really increased his powers by that much? "Why don't you sit for this?" he finally suggested. "We'll be here for a while."

He also aimed his wand at the door and reinforced her privacy ward. Now, nobody but the Headmaster himself would be able to get through, and he would only be able because of his rights to the school. Anything else would have triggered alarms that Ron didn't particularly want to trigger. Unless, of course, Harry had created those alarms and they hadn't been there before. It wasn't a chance he was willing to take.

Hermione hesitated, then settled herself in one of the chairs. She seemed surprised when it didn't collapse under her weight. "You really are from the future," she whispered after he'd cast the ward. "There's no way you would have been able to do this just last year."

Ron grinned. "I am from the future. And I can tell you that I was given this chance because there was, literally, no other option. Apparently the world ended very shortly after my death."

"Ended? How did the world end?" Hermione looked like she wanted to start writing all of this down, but she had neither a quill nor parchment, and Ron wouldn't have let her anyway. This sort of knowledge written down could be dangerous.

"In short?" Ron asked, and waited for her to nod. "The ritual that Harry used to freeze time for the planet ended mere seconds after I killed him, and when time restarted it tore apart the entire planet. At least, that's what I was told."

Hermione opened her mouth to say something, then frowned and closed it. Finally, after what seemed to be hours of silence but was likely only seconds, she said, "Harry froze time?"

Ron shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess he'd say. I never really did understand why he did it. He was a bit mad by that point. As near as I can figure, he was tired of the people he loved dying on him."

"So you've been sent back in time, by a ritual that you can't explain and don't understand, to stop Harry from ending the world? What are you going to do, kill him?" Hermione's wand was back in her hand, now, and though she remained seated there was nothing relaxed about her. It was clear that she was mere minutes away from trying to leave the room, and that meant that Ron had to do some damage control.

"I would never kill him unless there was no other choice," Ron said quietly, and let every bit of his adoration for Harry into his voice. He didn't often, because it had been useless in his own timeline, but here it would help with Hermione. She might understand more if she knew how very much Ron loved Harry.

And it worked, a bit. She relaxed once more, her wand lowered again, and she said, "Then what are you here to do?"

"I'm here to figure out how to keep Voldemort from coming back to life five different times and driving Harry mad in the process. If he never goes mad, then I'll never have to kill him. While I'm at it, I'd like to keep the Muggles from finding out about us because they're violent little shits and if I never have to see one of my friends burn at the stake again it will still be too soon. I'll kill all the Death Eaters I can get my hands on, and hope that I can set things right somewhere in all of that."

Hermione had been relaxing. She really had been. She stood after he was done talking, though, and said quietly, "You can't do this on your own. We need to go talk to Dumbledore."

"Yeah, we can't do that," Ron said. "He'll try to stop me, you know he will. Meddling with time is a dangerous business, and he might not like that I'm trying to do this."

"The Headmaster only wants what's best for everyone, Ron. He would understand," Hermione protested. She took a step toward the door.

Ron drew his wand. "I won't let you speak to him about this," he said quietly. "I can't. He'll try to stop me, 'Mione. I don't know how I know it, but I just do. He might not even believe me, and he might just lock me away somewhere. I can't let that happen. I shouldn't have told you. This was a mistake."

"If you Obliviate me, I'll only figure it out again. You're not being as sneaky as you should be, not for this. I'm clever, Ron," she cautioned, and turned to face him. She raised her wand once more, but there was a look in her eye that said she knew her chances of beating him in a fight were pretty slim.

Ron closed his eyes. "I know you are," he said. "Which is why I can't Obliviate you. You'll figure it out again, and next time you might not come to me. You might go to Dumbledore, or somebody else, and they might decide that I need to be removed from the playing field."

Hermione tensed. "If you can't Obliviate me, then what are you going to do?"

"You're not a stupid girl," Ron said. "You're the brightest witch I ever knew. Even after you died, there was never another like you. I would seriously hate to have to find out if the same would hold true for this new timeline."

Hermione's eyes narrowed. She took a step back, as though she couldn't stop herself, then she stopped moving and glared at Ron. Even now, even after all the terrible people Ron had faced, Hermione's glare was still quite impressive. "You would kill me, an innocent child who's done nothing wrong?" she asked.

"I don't have a choice," Ron said. "I'm not the only one meddling with time. Magic warned me, told me that an enemy had been sent back as well. They're working to keep Harry mad, or to keep Voldemort alive, one of the two. Either option would be disastrous, and the thought of one of those monsters running around unchecked makes me terrified. Which is why you'll leave here as either an ally or a corpse. I can't afford any other option."

Hermione closed her eyes. Ron could see her thinking, see her turning the problem over and over in her mind, looking for a way out. There wasn't one. She'd gone and caged herself in a room with a very dangerous wizard, and she'd done so knowing that he wasn't who he was pretending to be. Hermione was the brightest witch of her age, but Ron thought that sometimes she lacked common sense. Perhaps that was the Gryffindor that she'd never had killed within her. He was pretty sure the wars had destroyed his own inner Gryffindor.

"But if I'm your ally, you'll let me leave here alive?" she asked, only a moment after the silence between them became oppressive.

"If you're my ally, I would do more than that. I would do everything in my power to make sure that you stayed alive through this, because you'll be my only one unless I'm terribly unlucky and somebody else figures this out."

"You would have done everything in your power to keep me alive anyway. You cried when you saw me for the first time after you stole this Ron's body." She was smiling at him, a knowing thing that made him flush and look away.

"You died a long time ago in my world. Seeing one of my best friends alive and well again was… well, I'm glad that it was just you and Harry there, because any of my brothers would have mocked me terribly."

"We were all dead in the future, weren't we?" Hermione asked. The hostility and tension was fading from her, slowly, and Ron began to relax a bit himself. Maybe this could still work.

"You were," he agreed. "Of the Hogwarts students that I knew, only Harry and Draco were left alive. I killed Draco shortly before I killed Harry, because he didn't want to live without his Soulmate."

Hermione's eyes closed, she took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "I, Hermione Jean Granger, do swear upon my magic to hold the secrets of Ron's past until such time as I am given leave to discuss them, so mote it be." There was a flash of light as the magic caught and took, and Hermione let out a deep breath. "This makes us partners in crime, you understand."

Ron grinned. "I couldn't think of many better," he said cheerfully. He put his wand away after cancelling the privacy charms on the door. "We might be missed if we don't head back soon, otherwise I would say we could get started on figuring out our next step."

"We'd definitely be missed soon, because there's a House meeting in ten minutes. The Headmaster asked to address us as a whole away from the rest of the school, and there hadn't been one of those in centuries." She left the room, then, a slight bounce in her step.

Ron followed once more, and once he'd caught up to her he said, "You always have a backup plan, don't you?"

She smirked at him. "Like I would go and confront a presumably dark wizard without any sort of escape plan. I'm not an idiot, Ron."

Ron grinned as he went back to the common room with her. Hermione Granger. She would be a hell of an ally, that was for sure. And maybe, just maybe, she'd be able to keep him from being too ruthless in his attempts to fix the past.

Not that some people, like Umbridge, didn't just need killing. He just needed to find the right way to do it, that was all.


	6. Chapter Five

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Phoenix Rising

Chapter Five-

Hermione stopped just before they entered the common room once more. "Do you know what we're meeting about?" she asked, staring at him intensely.

Ron grinned at her. "I have a feeling, but only because this meeting never happened in my original timeline."

"Did you already change something?"

"Yeah. And yes, it was something that had the potential to be pretty major, before you ask," Ron said cheerfully.

"Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger, if you could continue into the common room? We have a lot to discuss," Professor McGonagall said from directly behind them, making them both jump.

Really, Ron should have known better. He shouldn't talk about this where anybody might overhear, especially not when he knew that there were teachers on the way. While a student might miss what was being said, a teacher would pick up on things that Ron hadn't even realized he was giving away. Then again, the teachers at Hogwarts never had realized when Harry had been up to no good...

"Sorry, Professor," he said, and offered her an innocent smile.

She snorted at him. "I've seen that same expression on your brothers' faces one time too many to fall for that. Whatever it was you were up to, I don't want to know. There are more important things to deal with right now, I'm sure."

Ron and Hermione entered the common room, to find that most of the House was waiting. Harry had saved them seats off to one side toward the front, so they went to join him.

"Any idea what this is about?" Harry asked them both.

"No clue," Hermione said with a shrug. "We haven't had a meeting like this since the sixteen hundreds, during the witch trials. Of course, that meeting was held because the Head of House at the time was found guilty of witchcraft and executed, so I'm sure that's not what this one is about."

Ron hid a smile. He knew what this was about, or at least, he hoped he did. Hopefully it would be about Draco. If it was, then he'd at least managed to make one good change. Draco and Harry would get to know each other that much sooner, and then Harry would have his Soulmate's support that much earlier. How could that not be a good thing? Surely that support could help to keep Harry from going mad, right?

At the front of the room, Professor McGonagall tapped her throat with her wand and then said, with the aid of a Sonorous charm, "If I could have everyone's attention, please?"

It took a few moments for the dull roar of the room to subside into relative silence, and the Professor waited calmly for it to do so. Once it had, she offered them all a tense smile. "As some of you are aware, there has not been a meeting of this sort since long before even I was the Head of House here in Gryffindor. In the past, these meetings have been used to announce events of great import to the entirety of the House, such as a change mid-semester of House leadership, or a change in the leadership of the school. They have also been used to announce a student seeking Sanctuary."

A low murmur picked up around the room, it's tone vaguely questioning. Professor McGonagall quelled that murmur with a stern look. "Sanctuary has not been granted to a student within Hogwarts in a very long time, perhaps not since the time of the Founders. It is an antiquated concept, because it relies on several things being the case that have not occurred in tandem in many centuries. The first is that the student, for whatever reason, must not be able to return to his or her home. The second condition requires that the student not be safe in his or her own House. This could be for many reasons, but typically it is because the views they express are greatly conflicting with the views of the majority of their housemates. The student must be re-Sorted in order to be properly considered under Sanctuary. The third condition requires that the student not be safe, for any number of possible reasons, outside the walls of Hogwarts. A student seeking Sanctuary would have to demonstrate grave need in order to be considered." Professor McGonagall paused a moment, then asked quietly, "Are there any questions about the concept of Sanctuary?"

"Other than starting out in a different House, are there other differences for a student under Sanctuary?" Hermione asked, fairly vibrating in her seat.

Professor McGonagall's smile widened a bit. "There are, in fact, quite a few. A student who has been granted Sanctuary will have his own room. Relations between the incoming student and his new Housemates may not be as well-established as between already-existing yearmates and so every effort is made to give him his own space. He will also be unavailable to join the Quidditch team due to the inherent risk in the sport, nor will he be able to earn or lose House points. This is to eliminate any possibility of retaliation from the former Head of House or Prefects. His former Head of House will also be unable to assign detentions, though he will still be able to have them assigned on his behalf." She looked around the room and asked, "Any other questions?"

When there were none, her thin smile faded. "It is then my duty to tell you that the Headmaster has accepted a student's request for Sanctuary. He will be joining your House as soon as he is invited into the room, and I expect you all to treat him with the same respect and courtesy you would any other Gryffindor, for all that he did not begin as one of us."

Her eyes narrowed and she added, "I would also like to state that I know that relations between Gryffindor and Slytherin have been particularly rocky as of late. I expect you all to treat Draco Malfoy with all the kindness and courtesy you would wish to be treated with were you in a similar situation. This is an honor to our House, to be entrusted with a student in need of Sanctuary, and I expect you all to act like it." Her glower swept over them all, and then she turned and headed for the entrance.

While her back was turned, frantic conversation picked up throughout the common room. Through it all, Harry was entirely silent, his gaze fixed on Professor McGonagall's back as she, presumably, spoke to Draco at the portrait hole. Hermione was tugging on Ron's sleeve, but he ignored her. Whatever she wanted to ask could wait, probably should wait in fact. They were in no way alone at the moment.

And then Professor McGonagall had turned back around, and the room was falling silent. Draco Malfoy walked behind her, and there was the slightly… dreamy look in his eyes that Ron knew so well as he stared back at them. There was a slight smile playing at his lips, as though he knew something that none of them did, though he didn't look arrogant at all. In fact, his bearing was almost entirely different than it had been. Not surprising, considering that in the past he'd been under the Imperius curse.

He looked much more like the friend Ron remembered, and it was almost heartbreaking to see because he would likely never be that friend again. Which was for the best, really. That Draco had been… broken in so many ways. This was much better.

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and rested one hand on Draco's shoulder. "Draco woke up in the Hospital Wing a week ago after having been held under the Imperius Curse from six years of age. All of the things he has said and done while here at Hogwarts were not of his own free will. I urge all of you to give him a true and honest chance, because you may be surprised by what you find."

Her announcement was greeted with dead silence. Seriously, Ron could hear the crackling of the fireplace, and he wasn't even sitting anywhere near it. Nobody was moving, or rustling, or anything. It was the most silent he'd ever heard the common room, and that included the times he'd snuck out in the past. Merlin, it hadn't even been so quiet when Harry had taken the castle back, but that was mostly because Harry had preferred Gryffindor Tower to anywhere else in the castle. There had always been a bit of life there.

Ron wasn't surprised. To be held under Imperius for such a long time was something of an abomination. The curse itself was horrible enough, but to be held under it for the majority of his life… He could see his fellow Gryffindors re-evaluating Draco as he stood there, assessing him and finding him, perhaps, to be more than they'd expected.

Professor McGonagall let out a small sigh when nobody spoke. "His room will be behind the portrait of Ellidaine Graimaire, just off to the side. I'm sure you've all noticed it by now," she said, with a gesture to a small, unobtrusive portrait that had been added to the room sometime between when Ron had left in the morning and the start of the meeting. She fell silent, then, and waited expectantly.

Harry stood, the movement quick and sudden. He stepped forward once, twice, with jerky steps that looked like he wasn't making them of his own free will. He came to a stop just in front of Malfoy, and a look passed between the two of them that made Ron's heart ache. He knew the expression on both of their faces. It was as though the world had ceased to exist around them, and all that mattered was the other.

Finally, quietly, Harry said, "It's good to meet you, Draco. I hope that we can be friends," and extended his hand.

"I would like that, very much," Draco answered, and took Harry's hand.

With Harry's greeting, conversation sprung up around the common room. The crowd began to disburse after Professor McGonagall left the room, and other than giving Draco a few curious looks, most of the Gryffindors left him alone entirely. Harry stayed with him, speaking quietly to him.

Hermione tried to get Ron's attention once more, but Ron really wasn't in the mood. He'd done the right thing. He'd done a good thing. The two of them belonged together. Watching them fall in love for the second time was going to be terrible. He couldn't take his eyes off them.

Eventually, Hermione stood and walked over to join Harry and Draco. She and Draco spoke for a few moments, and then Hermione extended her hand to him. The two shook, and Ron felt like something incredible was happening. He just couldn't deal with it right then.

He should go over there. He should go over and talk to them, let Harry know that he was okay with this. Let Draco know that he was perfectly willing to let the past be the past. It would be the right thing to do, because he didn't want Harry to doubt his friendship for even a minute. He didn't want Draco to worry that he was coming between them. Hermione was already there, doing the right thing. Letting the past lie in the past. Ron knew that he should do the same, because...

Because he knew he'd done the right thing. He had, but Merlin did it hurt. He went up to his bed, despite the early hour, and closed the curtains around himself. He didn't want to be around anybody just then. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to be nice, or if he'd do something he regretted as the pain in his heart got worse. And it would get worse, he knew that. He remembered how much it had hurt to see the two of them together the first time, and knew that he'd have that to look forward to now. But Harry and Draco would have their chance at happiness.

He knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, that he'd done the right thing.

Alone, Ron curled in on himself and lay there, for how long he couldn't have said. The room darkened, and he could hear voices as the other boys came up to go to bed, and eventually everything was silent once more. When the growling of Ron's stomach got to be too much to bear, Ron opened his curtains with the intentions of heading down to the kitchens.

Harry wasn't in his bed.

All thoughts of hunger or food left him in a rush. Instead, Ron closed his curtains once more, curled in on himself, and tried not to cry. He'd done the right thing. He'd done the only thing he could do. Why did it have to hurt so much?


End file.
